Sorry I didn’t get a post up yesterday, I was busy with things (the word things is open to interpretation).

However, to make up for my absence yesterday, here are four stories for your enjoyment today.

American Express wants a Bailout
Alright Congress, here’s your chance. We’ve all asked, where does it end with the bailouts? And now, served up on a silver platter, is your opportunity to finally say no to someone.

American Express Co. is seeking $3.5 billion in funds under the government’s plan to directly invest in financial firms, according to a Wednesday report in The Wall Street Journal citing unnamed sources.

Earlier this week, American Express received approval from the Federal Reserve to become a bank holding company, which is a similar structure to traditional commercial banks. The credit card company now has access to financing from the Fed and the ability to grow a large deposit base.

American Express’ profits have fallen for two reasons.

1.) They would sell pools of credit card debt to investors on the secularization market. Obviously with the current financial situation investors aren’t too keen on buying unsafe debt; they’ve scaled back on their purchases.

2.) People aren’t using their credit cards as often and they’re missing payments.

Now, do those two situations give American Express the right to get money from the government? Absolutely not. That’s the risk you run being a credit card company, you can’t assume that the economy will be sunshine and lollipops every year.

Once the economy bounces back American Express will more than make up for this downturn, people will begin using their credit cards more frequently and begin making missed payments (which they’ll have to pay enormous fees for). We should have said no to the other request but now it’s time to draw the line in the sand.

Are you Ready for Mandated Health Care?
After the wild success of mandated and universal health care in countries around the world (hint the sarcasm), one Senator thinks we should jump on board.

Without waiting for President-elect Barack Obama, Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, will unveil a detailed blueprint on Wednesday to guarantee health insurance for all Americans by facilitating sales of private insurance, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, and requiring most employers to provide or pay for health benefits.

The plan requires every American to have health insurance and if you can’t afford it you get a government subsidy.

“Every American has a right to affordable, high-quality health care,” Mr. Baucus said. “Americans cannot wait any longer.” Far from being a distraction from efforts to revive the economy, he said, “health reform is an essential part of restoring America’s economy and maintaining our competitiveness.”

Really? Every American has a right to health insurance? Funny, I must have missed that in the Constitution. Since we’re rewriting the rights we have in this country I think everyone should have the right to ice cream, at least one bowl a day.

The Guy who whined about Bush stealing the election is stealing his election
Al Franken, along with other liberal loons, whined and cried in 2000 claiming Bush had “stole the election.”

And now Franken is stealing the senate seat in Minnesota.

When Minnesotans woke up last Wednesday, Republican Senator Norm Coleman led Mr. Franken by 725 votes. By that evening, he was ahead by only 477. As of yesterday, Mr. Coleman’s margin stood at 206. This lopsided bleeding of Republican votes is passing strange considering that the official recount hasn’t even begun.

So Coleman’s lead is dwindling before the recount even starts. Oh, but it gets better.

For example, there was Friday night’s announcement by Minneapolis’s director of elections that she’d forgotten to count 32 absentee ballots in her car. The Coleman campaign scrambled to get a county judge to halt the counting of these absentees, since it was impossible to prove their integrity 72 hours after the polls closed. The judge refused on grounds that she lacked jurisdiction.

Why were these absentee ballots in this woman’s car. Aren’t they suppose to be kept in safety at the Clerk’s office?

Up in Two Harbors, another liberal outpost, Mr. Franken picked up an additional 246 votes. In Partridge Township, he racked up another 100. Election officials in both places claim they initially miscommunicated the numbers. Odd, because in the Two Harbors precinct, none of the other contests recorded any changes in their vote totals.

According to conservative statistician John Lott, Mr. Franken’s gains so far are 2.5 times the corrections made for Barack Obama in the state, and nearly three times the gains for Democrats across Minnesota Congressional races. Mr. Lott notes that Mr. Franken’s “new” votes equal more than all the changes for all the precincts in the entire state for the Presidential, Congressional and statehouse races combined (482 votes).

So Franken’s votes keep going up, while vote totals for other democrats barely change. This election is certainly being stolen…before the recount even takes place.

Funny how all of the “missing ballots” that were suddenly discovered were Franken ballots.

–jb